here is an animated gif of us using a super soaker with gasoline:http://a3.ec-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/119/547ed799322243f29cf1d50e42f25606/l.gif

one person held the gun, pumped it, and squeezed the trigger. another person held a lit candle in front of the gun. it took about 15 minutes for the gasoline to melt through the plastic and pour over our hands. that's why we bought 4 guns! lol

unfortunately, super soakers do not let you pump up the pressure anymore. as soon as you pump it, it 'fires'.

So this would be a realy bad idea to try... maybe i could rig a servo up to it so i just pump it up walk away push the button and watch it shoot fire then exsplode or w.e happens when its outa presser-gass-working parts.

if a super soaker had a water pump, this would make it safer-but not by much. get away from the idea that pre-made plastic items are going to be safe. at best, you need an auto store or junkyard for gas-safe plastics. remember-if you can get wet using it, you might as well be dead.

A) The plastic you are looking for is called "HDPE" (plastic gas cans)B) Super-Soakers are commonly made from "PETE" and "LDPE".C) Neither are particularly vulnerable to gasoline as they are to acetone.D) Flame cannot possibly even get sucked into a nozzle that small.E) Learn your plastics: http://tinyurl.com/2ctgfuF) Making a watergun shoot flammables is never safe anyway, so don't even try it unless you are going for the Darwin Award!

soz for double post but had to say: if i poured sulphuric acid on you, would you say "oh well at least it isent nitric acit whitch would eat away my skin much faster" or: oh shit i'm gona die if i dont get this of me quick!

I'd much rather nitric acid over sulphuric acid. Concentrated sulphuric acid does nasty things to orgainic material, concentrated nitric gives you time to wash it off before any grave damage is done. L

asuming the same molarity and that you'r not wearing clothes, both are equaly corosive when at the same acidity (sulphuric is diprotic) although it also dehydrates the skin on contact, turning it a browney black and halting its progress.this is why i would prefer nitric, although nitric mixed with sulphuric would be much beter as it wouldn't get as hot. and would form the same protective layer.

Not sure what you mean by this post, but there is such a thing as "quench-space" for any form of combustion, this is why too high a compression ration in an engine can cause it to be nothing mroe than an air pump. Gasoline is not an acid, it is an alkali....

a flame can get suked into a nozle 60 microns in diamiter ie. thare aint no nozle small enuf 2 stop that flaming sonovabich from exploding. if reacting atoms/molecules can pass through it then sustainable burning can ocur. also you need to think about how presurized soaker chambers work as it is esentialy the same as the combustion chamber in a car (all it need is an exhoust and a spark plug ;) ps. dont do it people its just to dangerous for the hasle. (unless you have a death wish, dont make a bloody explosive flamethrower.)

flame cannot burn through .60 MM holes much less 60 microns...This is why some high-proof alcohol bottles have screens on them. Even faucet screen is more than a 60-micron opening.....you do know what a micron is, don't you?

the efect of the screen is to avoid a fuel/air formation within the bottle, allowing it to burn, this happens because the volatile liquid is constantly producing vapor so forcing air out of the bottle.yes i do know how big a micron is. if you still think a flame cant be passed through 60 mesh, grab a glass bottle, fill it a quarter with propane gass, then top it up with oxygen. place 60 mesh over the mouth of the bottle and try and light it. gf you'r face.i take no responsibility for what you decide to do based on my advice.

yes there is, it's called oxygen, your gas can't burn without it. that's why only gas fumes only burn and not the liquid itself. plus, if you put vodka or rubbing alcohol in the gun, it would work beter lol.

wow didn't expect people to still be commenting on this discussion.petrol can burn as a solid liquid or a gass, tests have been done with octane and decane on the efects of volatility on combustion.what i think you meant is that it doesn't tend to burn as a liquid.when you pump up a water gun (not including the rubber blader veraity) you are forcing air into the chamber. this creates a fuel/air mix whitch is known to be eplosive. roughly 5 drops of octane in a vaporised mixture with air, is capable of creating an explosion with the same destructive efect as half a stick of dynamite.

some plastics used in water guns are soluble in ethanol. hence the same problem as octane. if you want to do this and insist on not modifying/rebuilding the gun. at least grab a bottle of argon from some welding suplier and use it for the air input. at that point you'r above statement would be true.

ps: paintball "nitrogen" canisters are actualy compressed air and so contain oxygen, therefore cant be used to make air intake safe.

The fuel mix inside the tank is too high to support a rapid reaction, it simply doesn't have enough oxygen to burn in the tank. On the other hand gunpowder which has its own oxygen or oxidising agent (KNO3) can burn in a container producing explosions.

If theres a mist, all the droplets are apart and wont feed back into the tank to explode. If its a steady stream, it will. Its this same concept that doesnt make you get electrocuted if you pee on the third rail of a subway. It's also why fire breathers have to get their blowing into the perfect mist before they actually use fire and flammable liquid.

ok, um, that's two very different things. electricity is conducted by touch-a broken stream of droplets won't conduct (but may be close enough to reduce resistance enough that sparks can bridge, so don't test your theory. accidentaly peeing on an electric fence is one thing, third rail is in a different class). fire needs air (or at least an oxidizer). fire breathers need to have a mist to maximize the surface area so that all the fluid burns quickly. if they don't exhale fast enough, the flame travels back into their mouth (flame propagation rate-basicaly how fast something burns). in this case, IF your supersoaker doesn't explode (gas softens many plastics) or dribble all over your shoes, the last shot is going to be air with a significant amount of gas vapor-an explosive mix that will travel into the tanks and explode. to try to say it a different way, a glass full of gas will burn only at the surface-pritty, smoky, hot, but not to dangerous. a room filled with gas vapor will explode as all the molicules and droplets burst into flame at (nearly) the same time.

more like a self immolation device. it might squirt burning gas, it might leak gas all over you, it might fail under pressure covering you with gas while you are holding a flame, it might just have the nearly empty tanks explode near your face. there's what, 4 or more types of plastic in a super soaker that could fail (tanks, seals, valve/trigger group, tubing, nozzle...), the joints could leak, plus things like filling and emptying it (under pressure or not), spills, bad gust of wind, splash effects... you can make a safe flamethrower, but not out of a water toy.

Actually, most fire breathers have it much safer than it appears... they use kerosene (paraffin to the brits among us) as their fuel source (if they're smart). By and large, they don't have to worry about the fuel igniting in their mouths because kerosene doesn't burn well as a pool of liquid, and is nowhere near as volatile as gas (petrol) or white gas (meths). The real dangers of fire breathing come in a few different forms... 1. fire breather inhales directly after emptying mouth, or with mouth partially full and gets burning kerosene inside lungs 2. wind changes and either forces flame into face or into mouth 3. burned lips from dripping fuel 4. cancer or poisoning from fuels that are not pure kerosene (naptha is nasty stuff) none of this applies when breathing fire with alcohol, however. The alcohol is much more volatile and can easily fill your mouth and lungs with flammable vapors. BREATHING FIRE WITH ALCOHOL OR GAS IS VERY DANGEROUS. The other issue with alcohol is that any proof that will burn well enough to breath fire with will also be strong enough that a significant amount of alcohol will be absorbed through the tissue of the mouth... you can easily find your mouth numb, or yourself tipsy without ever having swallowed and believe me, you don't want to breath fire with numb lips. the biggest issue with a steady mist is simply getting a good fireball.

Well you have to understand the basic laws of physics to do this safely and make good safe decisions on what flammable fluid to use and how it leaves the gun. Gasoline won't burn when in liquid form, its the fumes that burn not the liquid. So if the gas leaves the gun in a liquid stream then it is less apt to flash back into the nozel of the gun. If it leaves the nozel and becomes a mist shortly after it will turn into a vapor much faster and you could end up with flash burns. But generally supersoakers store air as the propellant and that not good because fuel needs oxygen to burn which it will have if air in your pressurized chamber of the gun. So basically you have just pressurized air (oxygen) forcing a flammable liquid out the nozzel of the gun. This is bad because now you have gas fumes (which burn) and oxygen mixed. If the flames somehow get back through the nozel and into the area where the gas fumes and air/oxygen are mixed very well, well it goes "BOOM" and your off to the burnward for some very painful proccedures. Instead of pumping the gun, get a nitrogen canister from a paint gun, adjust the regulator to a very low output that won't explode the guns air tank (experiment with this with water first) and use nitrogen to charge the gun. (Nitrogen is an inert gas that won't support combustion) Also chilling the gasoline to below zero degrees celcius will help because the point at which gasoline begins to vapor is above 32 degrees. You can also use a mixture of kerosene and gasoline, the kerosene takes the flash point of the mixture up higher than gasoline alone so you will end up with a napalm kind of effect. Napalm is just Ivory bar soap and gasoline. The trick is to get the fuel to acned about 1 foot infront of the gun. To do this you can just put the pilot out a bit further, but not too far because once air mixes well with fuel vapors they will ignite and you could end up with flash back. I could go on, there is so much more, my head is swimming with ideas but my best suggestion is not to do it at all, its dangerous, just come here and watch other people risk life and limb. These are just suggestions to make your fun a little bit safer.

I have built many super soaker flamethrowers and none have exploded. At first I used lighter fluid but then realized that lighter fluid has acetone and acetone softens plastics( my gun jammed). I then switched to using 99% iso. alcohol and that works fine. Can super soaker flamethrowers explode? Yes. There have been many occcurences when 'squirt' bottles of lighter fluid have exploded. This happens because the flame is sucked into( along with oxygen) the bottle and the fluid is ignighted. There are two types of super soakers. One uses air pressure to shoot water and the other uses the elasticity of a balloon-like bladder to propel water out of a nozzle. It should be apparent that the former is the most dangerous of the two, however it is only dangerous if there is backflow. Super soakers use a valve to control water flow( this is what the trigger controls). If one is cautious when using a super soaker flamethrower and does not let every last drop out of the gun he/she can minimize the risk of backflow. Although, I sincerely doubt that by the time one empties the firing chamber of its contents there would be enough flammable fluid to cause a substantial explosion. Just to be safe I would coat the firing chamber of any super soaker flamthrower in duct-tape. My advice to those looking to make a flamethrower, get a super soaker that uses CPS technology( rubber bladder). The packaging normally says CPS or constant pressure system. Water warriors guns that use this include the Orca and the smaller versions of this gun( any gun that has plastic hemispheres on the top. These hold the rubber bladders).

Yeah, um, Gas wont work, every "flame thrower" I've seen uses WD-40, as a fuel, it seems to work pretty well... It's still risky, but I doubt that the flame will "get sucked" into the pressure chamber, and if It did, it would probably melt your nozzle / valve before it exploded. I'm fairly certain the only military flame throwers also used some form of oil, and not gasoline. Fire breathers use mist to make sure that the stuff ignites, it's not some kind of wierd water dropplet seperation thing. It's just like if you "mist" flour or saw dust it'll explode, it's just that with a liquid it's easier to handle and produce the mist with. Farmers have to be very careful in grain silos for this reason. Petrol/Gas is actually Really hard to light, and THrowing a match into a tank of gas will usually just extinguish the match. Realistically, if you want a fire show, just use hairspray and a lighter, or poor gas on the ground. Buiding flame throwers is massively dangerous.

It won't explode because there is not enough oxygen in the tank to burn. There has to be the correct air:fuel ratio for there to be ignition, which is why the gas itself doesn't burn, the fumes do. There has to be more oxygen than there is able to be able to burn when it is in a liquid form.

oh my god u must be an 8 year old mental patient to think you need an exact amount of air per fuel.... ANY AIR AT ALL WILL BE ENOUGH TO MAKE THIS INTO AN AIR FUEL BOMB (asuming the air you have in your ward has oxygen in it :P) also be aware that alchohol is a solvent and so will disolve the plastic unles you custom make a water pistol from a plastic whitch is not soluble in petrol (very hard) when that thing blows your arm of, and soaks you from the explosion in burning petrol, as you run for your life, a burning beacon on the back lawn of some estate in london... DONT COME RUNING TO HUG ME!

for all of you asking questions about this trying to let others convince you this is fairly safe... please realize this is extremely unsafe. I also thought this was the coolest thing i'd ever seen but 10 seconds of conscious thought made me realize how dangerous this is.

FYI, plastics are nonconductive and generate static when rubbed together (and even when high velocity fluids... like air.... flow across their surface) and that's the exact mechanism used to pump oxygen into a gas filled chamber that's made out of petrol dissolvable materials. the least of your worries should be the flame coming back in through the nozzle cause that will not happen.

Practically, if WW3 happens and i become a road warrior that has to defend myself at all costs, I'll make one. otherwise, i'd stick with making napalm cause it's slow burning and you don't hold it in your hand while it's lit.

kiteman is right and what sucks is someone is going to hurt themselves doing this someday.

I have attempted something like this before. I used a spray bottle filled with a 20/80 alchol/lighter fluid (naptha) mix. It is essential that you get a good spray, right between a mist and a stream to provide the right size of droplet for your fuel (just experimeent and find out). The alchol, which is quick to vaporize and has a low flash point, acts as an accelerator for the naptha, which is a petroleum distillate and relativly non-corrosive. The naptha is the main fuel and way not ignite until it lands on something (things totallyburst into flames if you do it right). The major problem is that after several hours of use, the alchol begins to mess up the spray mechanism on the bottle. Instead of using a Super-Soaker or other pressurized water gun, try using a regular pump/trigger model. Check out Tetranitrate's instructable on fire breathing to giv you a good idea on this sort of thing.

Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) -contact lenses, glazing (best known in this form by its various trade names around the world, e.g "Perspex", "Oroglas", "Plexiglas"), fluorescent light diffusers, rear light covers for vehicles.Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) (trade name Teflon) -Heat-resistant, low-friction coatings, used in things like "non-stick" surfaces for frying pans, plumber's tape and water slides.Polyetheretherketone (PEEK) (Polyketone) -Strong, chemical- and heat-resistant thermoplastic, biocompatibility allows for use in medical implant applications, aerospace mouldings. One of the most expensive commercial polymers.Polyetherimide (PEI) (Ultem) - A General Electric product, similar to PEEK.Phenolics (PF) or (phenol formaldehydes) -high modulus, relatively heat resistant, and excellent fire resistant polymer. Used for insulating parts in electrical fixtures, paper laminated products (e.g. "Formica"), thermally insulation foams. It is a thermosetting plastic, with the familar trade name "Bakelite", that can be moulded by heat and pressure when mixed with a filler-like wood flour or can be cast in its unfilled liquid form or cast as foam, e.g. "Oasis". Problems include the probability of mouldings naturally being dark colurs (red, green, brown), and as thermoset difficult to recycle.Urea formaldehyde (UF), one of the aminoplasts and used as multi-colorable alternative to Phenolics. Used as a wood adhesive (for plywood, chipboard, hardboard) and electrical switch housings.Melamine formaldehyde (MF), one of the aminoplasts, and used a multi-colorable alternative to phenolics, for instance in mouldings (e.g. break-resistance alternatives to ceramic cups, plates and bowls for children) and the decorated top surface layer of the paper laminates (e.g. "Formica").Polylactic acid -a biodegradable, thermoplastic, found converted into a variety of aliphatic polyesters derived from lactic acid which in turn can be made by fermentation of various agricultural products such as corn starch, once made from diary products.Plastarch Material -biodegradable and heat resistant, thermoplastic composed of modified corn starch.

http://how2dostuff.blogspot.com/2005/11/how-to-make-flamethrower.htmlHere you go. I happened to find this link while searching for an explanation for why flamethrowers don't explode. Is this because it automatically shoots the fuel in streams so the flame doesn't go into the fuel container? Or the fuel shoots out so fast the flame doesn't have enough time to reach the end.

None of the above. There is not only a flame-screen at the end of the tube, but also the valve itself aslo prevents flame from traveling through it. Remeber that gasoline does not burn. There is no way to make gasoline burn within the reaches of human technology. Gas FUMES burn. Those who know what "quech-threshold" is know why flamethrowers don't explode, and it has absoluteny nothing to do with how fast it comes out, since once you stop, you have stopped the flow but not the combustion...

Even "real" flamethrowers are unpopular with their users, due to the risk of burn-back and blow-back (where the wind brings the flame right back at you).

Flame-throwers don't explode because they pump fuel out faster than the flame burns back along the stream. The fuel tanks need to be pressurised, which is why Supersoakers are so tempting to turn into flamethrowers. Unfortunately, most easily-obtainable fuels will dissolve the plastic of the gun (plastic dissolved in petrol = napalm), and the pressure drops off so quickly when you fire that the flame can easily burn back towards the gun.

Consider this: your supersoaker is slung from your shoulder, tucked under your arm. When it eventually explodes into a ball of fire an napalm, you won't be able to drop it, and it will be burning through major arteries.

"you won't be able to drop it, and it will be burning through major arteries." Lol I'm not trying this. Maybe if I set it up so the trigger could be pulled remotely, but I definitely wouldn't hold it myself.

yes, just add gasoline to a Super Soakerâ¢ and incorporate a metal nozzle to it and you will have a basic hand-pump flame thrower. To add, this is a Darwin-award-winner if you dare to try it, as this can explode if done without proper pyrotechnics experience.....I would not recommmend it as it can be dangerous for the non-stunt-trained.....

think plastic think solvent think pressurized container think flammible think open flame think Darwin Award Winner make sure to have someone on hand taking pictures. be sure it's a good friend, one that won't run for the phone, or freak out and drop the camera. better make it a tripod instead of a friend. web camera preferably. yes, i've seen how someone did it. they thought about it first.